References to B. Ichi in Okubo's Later Works
As Atsushi Okubo's first published manga series, B. Ichi continues to influence details in his subsequent manga series and their anime adaptations, such as Soul Eater, Soul Eater NOT! and Fire Brigade of Flames. ''Soul Eater'' and Soul Eater NOT! General Similarities with B. Ichi *Like Soul Eater and Soul Eater NOT! Okubo includes numerous allusions to music. *The Sun and the Moon in B. Ichi ''are highly stylized, both featuring frightening smiles. At all times, the Moon is always in crescent form. The smiling Sun and Moon would appear later in ''Soul Eater and Soul Eater NOT! ''The Moon itself serves as the final setting for the final arc of the ''Soul Eater manga. Direct References to B. Ichi *Black Star is seen reading a comic book featuring Charisma Justice. Character Designs Mana and Patty Thompson.png|Mana resembles Patty Thompson B_Ichi_Gaiden_2_-_You_prepares_to_cut_Usher.png|You's knife resembles Soul Evans's blade *Mana Hinoki resembles Patty Thompson's initial design in Chapter 0.3 of Soul Eater. In Chapter 7 of B. Ichi, Mana wears a cowboy hat that closely resembles the one wore by Patty as well as her sister Liz in their initial character designs. *Emine closely resembles Crona. Like how Emine has a tenuous friendship with the protagonist Shotaro while fighting against him, Crona has a tenuous friendship with the main protagonist of Soul Eater, Maka Albarn, despite fighting against her. *Nofix closely resembles the design used for Grimoire in the video game Monotone Princess, which was then adapted for the design of Noah and other Icons in the manga Soul Eater. *Rodigy closely resembles Ox Ford. Like Rodigy, Ox has electricity-based ability by wielding the lightning spear weapon, Harvar D. Éclair. *You's knife has a distinctive dark and light jagged pattern along its blade. This pattern would be used later as the design for Soul Evan's initial weapon form. Locations *''B. Ichi'' has settings that parody real-world settings, with names that were misspellings, anagrams, or puns on those real-world names, such as Toykyo and the I. C. Prefecture in Japon. Initially, Soul Eater did likewise; for example, the Pyramid of the Wrath of the Pharaoh was located in Hegypt. However, later chapters and the anime adaptation would change the location to the real-world Egypt, and the characters would visit other real-world locations such as New York City, London, the English Isles, Italy, Libya, the Amazon, Central Africa, Russia, and Ukraine. Even the fictional Death City is shown to be in the real-world United States. Techniques Objects *The Fear Robot and the designs of other Fear Factory robots are similar in design to the panda statues at Tsubaki Nakatsukasa's bathhouse in Chapter 0.2 of Soul Eater. Additional References and Similarities ''Fire Brigade of Flames General Similarities with ''B. Ichi Character Designs *Much as Mana Hinoki resembles Patty Thompson from Soul Eater and Soul Eater NOT! so do both resemble Iris in Fire Brigade of Flames. Locations Techniques Objects Additional References and Similarities *Both B. Ichi and Fire Brigade of Flames allude to the popular United States science fiction film series Star Wars. Characters and robots in B. Ichi allude to the names and appearances of Luke Skywalker and his droids, C-3PO and R2-D2. In Fire Brigade of Flames, a similar droid appears in Chapter 2, and in Chapters 2 and 3, Aki repeats a famous line from the film series: "I have a bad feeling about this." ''Gaiden *Atsushi-Ya and its characters such as Usher and You appear later in the ''Gaiden sections at the end of volumes of Soul Eater and Soul Eater NOT! References